If you want to start a blog or create a website using WordPress, you can get up and start running in very little time by using one of the two different WordPress varieties. First you must choose which one. At WordPress.com, you can get hosting service and standard site configurations. WordPress.org offers bogging software for self-hosted blogs and even for blog networks.

If you are on a WordPress.org blog network through, say, your school system, you will find your WordPress experience similar to that of WordPress.com users. Whichever WordPress software option you choose, you can change it later!

Hosted WordPress Blogs

What is WordPress.com. It is a blog host. Sign up with WordPress.com, and you can start blogging within minutes. The user interface is simple and similar to that of self hosted Word Press.org blogs, and the host handles updates and maintenance. WordPress.corn, however, limits your options in terms of your blog’s content and performance.

Why WordPress?

With other free blogging platforms available, you may wonder why you should choose WordPress. The answer largely comes down to control. With WordPress you own your content, and you can customize all you want. Also, WordPress allows use of static pages, which look and act like ordinary web pages, instead of simply showing content in chronological order as is typical for most blogs.

Self-Hosted WordPress Blogs

Options for customizing your blog are near Limitless when you have a self hosted, or independent, Word Press.org blog. The tradeoff is that your independent blog takes a little more effort to start, and maintaining the software updates and content backups is your job.

Key Differences

The following are some of the key differences of WordPress as against other blogging platforms:

Appearance – WordPress.com offers more than 130 layout designs, called themes, but they are good ones. If you want to customize your theme by editing the cascading style sheet, or (55. you must pay an annual fee. With a self-hosted WordPress blog, — you can choose among countless free themes or purchased themes, or create your own.

Plenty of Plugins – Plugins are program-like extensions that work with WordPress to add functionality. You can have as many as you want on your independent WordPress blog. WordPress.com does not let you add plugins, although many of the WordPress.com widgets provide plugin functions. A widget allows you to arrange sidebar information without writing code.

Running Ads – With a self-hosted WordPress blog, you can publish zero to endless amounts of advertising. At WordPress.com, the blog host itself occasionally posts ads on your blog, unless you pay a no-ad fee. Also, WordPress.com does not allow most types of ads, including AdSense, and only allows affiliate ads under special circumstances. However, In December 2011 WordPress.com introduced Word Ads to allow some, but not all, bloggers to make money on their sites.

Cost Effective – The blogging software is free, whether you host your own blog or put it on Word Press.com. If you self-host, you  must pay for space on a web server, although that can be Less than a dollar a month. If you go with WordPress.corn, you may decide to pay fees to eliminate their ads, edit the CSS, or post videos — costs absent for independent blogs.

Support is awesome – WordPress.com has a clearly written support section, redesigned in 2011, plus forums and a contact form for support. The support documentation for WordPress.org  blogs is called the codex. Written by WordPress volunteers, its quality gets better all the time, but it is inconsistent. At WordPress.org, no support contact exists except for the forums, but they are excellent.

1) Companies involved in web project management, can assess web designing techniques by requesting for ideas and solutions demonstrating their versatility with speculative designs. The Speculative Designs can change perceptions of how a web design is used on the web and how it behaves. Demanding for a speculative design, answers questions about how the graphics and functionality of the web design governs the way the contents are presented. On the other hand, it also reflects the highly creative presentation by the web project management company. By demanding a speculative website design, the clients can question the function of the web design and maybe even push the boundaries of what the web design can be.

2) End users continue to rule the roost, as they remain at the heart of any web project management. They are the bone of contention for many glossy corporate brochures or gritty web designs. The end users form an important source of inspiration that aids in generating design ideas and solutions. But the internet advantage does not require the web designers to become obsessed with the end user; infact, it relies on simplicity marketing, where the web project management is used to meet the company’s objectives, rather than complicating around the end user and thus complicating the blueprint.

3) Today, businesses exist and survive by web design testing. It is because of the never ending complications and costs of this process, many professionals do not place importance to the time factor in order to see that the web project management will perform better and effectively. The most realistic performance testing technique that can be applied in any project is your very own intuition. Years of experience in the web designing industry give the expert ability to make a good decision based on instinct that is a cutting edge gut feeling, and is often right.

4) The company should focus on forming a committee in order to highlight, dog-ear, bookmark, share and pass along the web design plan in order to meet the standards of the web project management. This is the key ingredient of creating websites that cost less, load faster and reach more number of end users. As a result of forming the committee, the web project management plan would have been substantially revised and packed with many new ideas and also explains the complexities of web designing in plain English to the rest of the committee members.

5) Take delight in details of web designing plan for web project management, glitter and gloss of graphics, functionality, consistency are what make the project extra special. Giving immense importance to details of web designing will provide finishing touches to the fabulous web design. It also helps to take a peak into the web designer’s studio where great web project management comes to life. One must continuously try to seek consistency in the web design that is compatible with different computers, applications, end users and of course the wide expanse of the internet.

6) Unsurprisingly, creating a competitive web project management is the dream of every entrepreneur and marketer, because they believe that they no longer have to invest in time and money for updating the website, in order to meet the demands of the changing environment. Corporate style web designs speak for themselves and one must insist on a unique corporate style web project management and maintain and manage the brand icon of the web design.

7) The Secret of creating a winning web project management is creating a customer centered one that is relatively easy to navigate by putting all the important features on the homepage. According to web design usability experts, it is all about making first impressions with the homepage. It is about how easy it is to navigate on the page and will the visitor be able to find the search box and what percentage of the homepage is being utilized for business.

“There is no Fold” is the latest mantra doing the rounds in the web designing industry, and according to this, the entire content come fit above the fold of the home page. One must insist on following standards in the creation of the web project management.

9) Here is a reality check for web designers who are wasting resources in subjecting the web design for testing of different web browsers, as all that is required is to check if it works well on Internet Explorer 6. Common sense approach is very important when it comes to designing websites for web project management, as the internet explorer is the most dominant browser in the end user consumer market.

10) Building a findable web design must the universal objective of any web project management The web design must essentially be built in order to effectively reach the target audience. Therefore, it is important to introduce a fresh perspective when it comes to achieving the indispensable goal of achieving a high level of SEO with the web design. The web project management must effectively help more people find your site, and also help users find content within the site and encourage return visits to the website.

These are some confessions that give a big idea about web designing, illustrating that you do not have to compromise the objectives of the web project managementt and thus plan, design and build elegant and successful websites.

According to a survey, when people learn about how to choose a domain name, some of the commonly asked questions include:

What is a website address?

A  Website address is a unique address that is used for locating your website’s home page. Most people learning how to start a website often come across the term URL. The term URL, is the short form for universal source locator and is used synonymously with the term website address. As there are a plethora of web servers available on the World Wide Web, the unique website address is used to identify your web server that will load the web pages on the web browser in order to start a website design.

What is a Domain Name and how to purchase it?

Another question while you learn how to choose a domain name is about how to go about purchasing it. There are a variety of services available on the internet that offers web space free of cost. Most books that give advice on how to start a website, point out the disadvantages of using free domain hosting services.

According to them, if you make use of services offering free web space, your web address will also contain their URL which is very long and confusing. Also, if you want to start a website to sell products and services of your company, a website address that is too long and complicated creates a wrong impression about the authenticity of the services. Hence, it is also suggestible to invest in purchasing a unique domain name on the World Wide Web.

Also, most business owners like to project a unique image for their website. As you learn about how to choose a domain name, you will realize the need for a unique domain address that comprises of only the name of the business and nothing else.

As they say, learning is a continuous process; therefore as you gain knowledge about the aspects of how to start a website on your own, it gives you immense confidence and an insight into creating an outstanding website for your business.

The unique Domain Name System also referred to as DNS, is instrumental in providing the basic format that allows the computers on the internet to communicate with each other. The concept of the connected computers on the World Wide Web has a specific Internet protocol address also known as IP address.  Although, most people can easily remember the Domain name but find it difficult to comprehend the coding of the IP address.

In other words, IP addresses are decoded in a readable format and presented to the user in the form of Domain Names.  As you learn how to choose a domain name, you will be able to identify the Domain names with a phone book from the real world. If you want to find information about a contact, you will have to search for the name in order to retrieve the phone number of the contact person.

Similarly, users make use of the unique domain name to search the unique IP address for that computer. This example can be used to understand the concept of using Domain names in order to start a website on the internet.

There are several books that can be found under the name of how to choose a domain name; and contain useful information about how to start a website and how to purchase a domain name. The books also contain information on the uses of DNS while you start a website. The Domains are controlled by individuals as well as organizations and are used in typing a website address or sending an email.

The Domain Names are simple and usually follow a “@” in the website address. However, after you have finished reading all information available on how to choose a domain name, you will be able to comprehend that the term domain name is far more complex than what it appears on a first glance.

Most Domain names that are registered appear as you.com, while in an email format your name needs to be added of course before “@you.com”. Therefore, if you want to learn how to start a website of your own, you can choose a unique domain name, preferably one that is very similar to the products and services offered by your company.

And, if the Domain name is already taken you can still start a website by interchanging the phrases in the domain name. As you start a website, you can also add features like multiple email addresses required for formal and informal use. Learning about how to choose a domain name also gives you the ability to create a unique home based business on the World Wide Web.

If you are looking among a plethora of books available for sale in your local bookstore giving advice on starting a website, you could be under the impression that you need to invest in buying software in order to launch a site. The real picture is that most of the tools required in order to starting a website are right in front of your eyes, on your personal computer. It only requires the keen perspective of a knowledgeable person, to find the right tools for starting a website, on your personal computer.

However, if you do not have the programs preinstalled on your operating system, you can always find free programs on the internet that are easily available for use. These programs also come with a set of instruction on starting a website that is pretty useful. Access to the internet is made possible with internet Dial Up networking as well as broadband. Although dial up networking has its own issues, most people are going for broadband that offers a free download time combined with high speed connectivity.

On the flip side, if your internet connection is slow, you don’t need to worry about starting a website, as the speed of the ISP does not affect your plan to start a site. All that it affects is the start up and download time of the websites design. Most people use windows that come with internet explorer for web browsing. But, before you starting a website, you need to make sure that you get free updates for the internet browser. If you are trying to improve the performance of the computer, you need to install anti virus programs like Norton antivirus. This makes it safe to download software that helps you to launch a site on the World Wide Web. The above analysis is required before you learn starting a website for a successful online venture.

Starting a website is not Rocket Science

If you are trying to figure out starting a website, read on as this article will take the mystery out of website building and help you in order to begin a site of your own, right from the scratch. According to a common notion, it is very difficult to begin a site but in fact, it is very simple and easy. The only problem is that, people should gain knowledge about what is involved, things that work, where to start a website, who to talk to in order to start a website and much more.

Learning starting a website is not rocket science and one does not need a graphic expert or a web developer geek giving you sermons on starting a website. Learning is an easy and simple task that requires step by step processes, free of any technical jargon and the whole journey is also quite enjoyable. Do-It-Yourself approach is the latest buzzword as it is a simple to understand method that helps you in understanding starting a website on your own without any outside help.

If you are creating your first website, DIY approach has many advantages over professional web design services. In order to starting a website, it is useful as it saves a lot of time and money especially if the website is going to need regular upgrades. It is also useful in creating a website that is relevant to the objectives and you don’t have to explain it to the others to create a website of your liking. This saves a lot of time and resources spent on getting the message across while you are the best person who can do full justice to the website design. But the professional help can also be not underestimated at the same time if someone does not have much idea on starting a website, as the professionals possess more clarity on the nitty gritties of web designing and development and often come out with some amazing designs to starting a website for you.

Technology is evolving at a fast pace and every website requires constant updating in order to stay ahead of competition on the internet. Therefore, learning to starting a website comes in handy here, as the website goes live on the internet, you will be able to make the changes on your own, without having to schedule a meeting with the professional web designer master. This also saves a lot of money spent in constantly updating websites.

DIY approach to website development is a boon for many as it gives you the power to manage your own niche in the World Wide Web at your convenience.

Art and Science of Starting a Website

Here is some first hand advice for those learning this art that will be successful, on the virtual arena. Most people think that it is too difficult to launch a site. But in fact, learning it in the right perspective, will pave the way for a successful website. It takes a lot of passion and hard work in starting a website on the internet. Perseverance is a virtue and this is required when you venture out to build it on your own.

Initially, when you are learning starting a website, you can make use of the basic tools available on the operating system of your computer; and create a website design that may not be as visually appealing but nevertheless is functional and get you started on the internet venture. The basic tools like the text editor and web browser, will aid in creating web pages with text that can be exported to the internet and set you up to starting a website on your own.

Today, everybody thinks that the internet is a gold mine and is setting up a website of his own in order to try their luck at the virtual forefront. As they say, with an increasing demand for websites, many professional website designing services, web developers, graphic designers and Search engine optimization experts with exorbitantly high fees are thronging the World Wide Web.

As you learn about starting a website, you develop an insight into the process of web designing and feel the need for an SEO professional right at the foundation of web designing. Therefore, the best way to go about starting a website is by hiring web designing services that also offer SEO expertise. This will aid in making the website achieve a higher ranking of the search results pages of major search engines.

Advanced techniques applied by SEO professionals include the use of keyword tags and Meta tags on the web pages in order to make it search engine friendly. SEO also requires submission of the website to major directories in order to improve its face value on the internet. As you learn the process required to go about starting a website, you become aware of the need to design the website to serve as a strong marketing tool, in order achieve success in the cut throat competition on the internet.

Starting a website is like starting a new part of life

As you learn how to start a website, you create immense opportunities for your business. You have the magical power of starting your own home based internet business; you can also build an e-commerce website, and also develop many strategies for making money online. Many experts suggest simple strategies that help you in starting a website. There are many books that offer tips and tricks on how to start a website. The tips are also used by even the most experienced web designers available on the World Wide Web.

In order to learn the tricks of the trade on starting a website, it is essential to understand what is the use of Domain names in starting a website?

It is a well known fact, that the cyberspace has changed the way we think, work, communicate and shop. The internet has changed our lives in a lot many ways. According to a survey, the average user who has an easy access to the internet, searches the web and emails on a daily basis. Websites form a part and parcel of everyday life too. Every business owner has a website address and those who don’t strive to attain a unique website address in starting a website of their own can always rely on the professional web experts and designers who come out with well laid plans to start a website for their company.

Today, even individuals who work in the showbiz prefer starting a website with their own unique portfolio in order to enhance their star status on the World Wide Web. Today, students around the globe are being imparted education via the internet and they are also learning how to start a website as a part of their school curriculum. Many businesses offer their product and services by creating a website design as a marketing tool to promote their products and services online. Therefore, the need to learn how to start a website is the main aim of most business powers around the globe.

Carving a unique niche on the internet is the main objective of most business owners who want to start a website. Website address represents the unique name of the company on the internet. Even individuals no longer depend on addresses for communication as website address is the latest buzzword.

As you learn about starting a website, creating a unique domain name system provides the unique architecture that allows the computer of the user to communicate with the computer known as the web server. As you go deep into the technique for understanding the need for starting a website, you will understand that Domain name is the very foundation of the World Wide Web.

This is used to enhance the outlook of the blog and make it more attractive and more appealing for the visitors who come to read blogs.

Many blog designs come with blogger layouts backgrounds themes.

With a little bit of technical coding knowledge, blogger can enhance the look and mood of their blogs.

For instance, to give a blog a casual and relaxed feel, an image of a beach can be used.

Or to give ta blog a more serious outlook, one may select an image of a workplace or stock pictures of people in business attire.

Through blogger layouts backgrounds, many blogger make use of different background images that can be changed from time to time to give a fresh look to a blog.

Sometimes when a blog is based on creative aspects of art and craft, then blogger layouts backgrounds help in giving a artistic feel by using flower images or vibrant color themes.

Blogger may make use of blogger layouts backgrounds for creating custom made images using Photoshop which gives a personalized touch to the blog and makes it unique.

]]> http://startwebsite.org/blogger-layouts-backgrounds/feed/ 0 http://startwebsite.org/criteria-of-a-good-web-site/ http://startwebsite.org/criteria-of-a-good-web-site/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:03:46 +0000 admin http://startwebsite.org/?p=467 Criteria for a good website are a new technique that fuses the strengths of the traditional techniques of web designing with the modern trends.

The traditional structured, stepped and iterative approaches to web designing have undergone a major transformation while determining the criteria of a good web site.

There is sharp focus on defining and achieving the desired characteristics of purpose usability and aesthetics that are absolutely essential requirements according to the criteria of a good website.

The criteria include various new perspectives on the usability and aesthetics of the special context of website design.

Thus the criteria of a good website design is for individuals and team projects and it should prove to be of significant value  for even the most experienced designer available on the world wide web.

The criteria of a good website include guidance, structure and detailed documentation for the process of website designing and implementing your next website, thus increasing its effectiveness and relevance on the web.

The methodology being applied is compatible with all types of websites and can be implemented to all project scenarios.

There is specially designed documentation provided to facilitate and support each process step.

Thus the user will be able to view the web design in new perspectives in terms of usability as well as aesthetics that the most important aspects of web designing.

There are many entrepreneurs who are in the initial stages of staring an online venture and the criteria of a designing website serve as an effectiveness roadmap to attaining online success.

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Web terminology dictionary of Commonly Used Webmaster Terms

CGI, Common Gateway Interface

CGI scripts are basically programs (software) which runs in the background on the computer where the web pages of a particular website are stored. These scripts serve the purpose which a simple document like a web page cannot do. For instance, if you want to search something on our website startwebsite.org using the Site Search option provided on the top right pane of this page, your search query actually goes to the CGI script which does the real search.

Downloading

When you download something from the Internet, you transfer the file from some computer on the Internet and then to your own computer. Traditionally, the term “download” was used only when you transferred something from a larger computer, like mainframe, to a smaller computer. However, the terminology has changed now-a-days when they speak of downloading from the Internet.

HTML, Hyper Text Mark-up Language

The web page you are viewing currently, you will see that some words are in bold, some underlined and some other in large fonts and so on. These things are accomplished by a hidden formatting code which constitutes a web page. These formatting codes will tell the web browser (such as Internet Explorer, Firefox or Netscape, etc) how it should display the web page. The language in which the formatting code is written is referred to as HTML.

FTP, File Transfer Protocol

Protocol is a set of rules which is followed over Internet and FTP, or File Transfer Protocol is a method used to transfer a file from one computer to another across Internet. FTP is often used by webmasters to publish their web pages on Internet. FTP is used to transfer their web pages from their computers to their web server and the transfer of files is usually accomplished by a program called an FTP client.

Perl

Perl is also a computer language used by webmasters. Perl is sometimes called as Perl CGI scripts or simply Perl scripts. Programs are written in Perl to do things that a simple document like a web page cannot do. For instance, Perl scripts are used to search a website for a particular document, send email for a feedback form, conduct online polls, etc.

PHP, PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor

PHP are software programs which run on the computer where the web pages of a website are stored. As they are computer programs, they can do things that a simple document like web page cannot do. For instance, just like Perl scripts the PHP scripts are used to search a website for a particular document, send email for a feedback form, conduct online polls, etc.

Uploading

Uploading is the term used by webmasters to refer to the act where they transfer a file from their own computer to another computer on the Internet. Just like downloading, uploading was traditionally used only when you transfer something from a smaller computer to a larger computer like a mainframe. However, this is not the sense in which uploading on the internet is used now-a-days.

Web Host

A web host is a company that has a computer or multiple computers that are permanently connected to the Internet. Web pages (documents) that are located on those computers can be read from anywhere and by anyone connected to the Internet.

Web Server

Web Server is used in two different senses. Firstly, a computer that is permanently connected to the Internet and allows people to read web pages located on that computer is called a web server. For instance, the web pages you are viewing right now on startwebsite.org are located on a web server somewhere in the world.
Secondly, a web server may refer to a computer program like apache. Just because the computer is connected to the Internet it doesn’t mean that anyone who is connected to the Internet can read the documents located on that computer. There has to be some computer program which runs on that computer to allow the users to read the web pages located on that computer using an appropriate browser. This computer program is also called as web server.

WYSIWYG, What You See Is What You Get

When a web page is designed or when you write a document using the WYSIWYG editor or word processor, the editor displays the page exactly (or almost the same) as it appears when it is published on the web page or when you take a print out of it. WYSIWYG means that what you see on the screen is what you get on output.

The Diversity of Numeric Date Formats

Let’s take 10.4.2009 for example. Depending upon your location it can either mean October 4, 2009 or 10 April 2009. If you have ever noticed the date formatting options in your operating system be it Windows, Mac OS X, Linux or any other OS, where dates can be formatted MM/DD/YY, DD/MM/YY or even YYY/MM/DD. Did I confuse you? You will know it in a bit.

If you are publishing a website then the numeric date formats will become ambiguous. Websites aren’t like your local newspaper. When you publish a site or a blog, you have an international audience; you are speaking to the world indirectly. The visitors coming to your site are accustomed to their local date formats and when they encounter your site, they will instinctively read your dates in the format of the dates they are used to perceive. To avoid any such misunderstanding it is always best to write the dates in a way that will be understood correctly, no matter where the visitor who is viewing your site comes from.

How to Write Understandable Dates

The simplest and easiest way to write dates that can be understood in any part of the world is to spell out the month. If we take the above mentioned example for instance then you can simply say October 4, 2009 or 4 October 2009 instead of 10.4.2009 or 4.10.2009. When you spell out the month obviously there are no chances of any confusion. It doesn’t matter whether you mention the date before the month or after the month. Use whichever arrangement you are most familiar within your country. The minute the month is spelled out there are no chances of the date getting misjudged.

Some owners of the sites don’t want to spell out the month as they fear that it makes their dates understandable to the people who can read the language the date is written in. this is a baseless argument. No matter how you look at it the site will be written in that particular language and what different will the month be from the rest of the web page if it is spelled out in a particular language. After all it follows the same language as you have it on your website. If a visitor can read the rest of the web page in the language then they can also read the date. Otherwise, they aren’t even going to look at your date anyway.

If you still insist on having a numeric date, then the numeric date format which yields least doubt is the YYYYMMDD format. The date which is read as 20091004 or 2009-10-04 will perhaps be interpreted as 4 October 2009 by most of the people. But there are few perverse people who insist that date to be 20 September 1004, but unless you are developing a site describing historical events. It’s a personal feeling that the date like 4 October 2009 or October 4 2009 is easily readable and faster to visually scan the terms than a string of numbers.

Usability and Professionalism

Although the date constitutes only a miniscule part of the web design, it is one of those little things which will help you in increasing the usability and professionalism of your site. After all, it doesn’t even require you to put any efforts in it.

Here is a small walk through over the tools and skills you need to start your own website.

• First and foremost you need access to a computer.
• Have access to the internet as well.
• You should have basic computer skills like creating a simple word document.
• You should know how to use any text editor like Microsoft Word or a notepad.
• You need a Web page or any other HTML editor.
• Basic knowledge of HTML and the website terms

Technical Skills

There is no rocket science involved in the web design technologies. It is very easy to learn them. You need very little technical knowledge so much so that an average person can also create a personal Webpage.

On the contrary, you don’t have to be an electrician to wire a plug or a fashion designer to fix a button. That is the technical level you need to be able to use HTML and any other web technologies.

Basic Start

Start a website with something small and do it slowly. Don’t expect to become an expert after a week. You don’t even have to spend all your time ready by buying those e-books or regular books.

Once you know how to start you can proceed by starting with the basics and building step by step. Learn only what you need to move ahead on to the next step.

It is essential for you to know understand the common terms so that you will be able to distinguish between a website and a web server. Do not confuse yourself with the terminology.

Once you are convinced that you can create your own Webpage and know how to link them together you are all set to create your own Webpage.

Persistence

If you know the basics then starting a website isn’t difficult. All it needs is enough time, effort and above all persistence. Website cannot be created in a day or not even in a week. You need months to create a complete website and a constant updating of the site.